These voters wanted to make a statement

Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole visits with those attending an election night watch party May 11 at First United Bank.

Looking back at the election results from May 11, it looks pretty clear there were about 1,300 people who mostly wanted to vote against incumbent Mayor Paul Harpole - or maybe just really liked his almost anonymous opponent.

That opponent, Terry Baughman, got 1,270 votes. Looking at all the city commission races, the under votes ranged from 1,223 to 1,517. An undervote means the ballot had no candidate marked for a particular race. So almost the same number of voters who voted against Harpole, didn't vote at all in the commission races.

For comparison, there were only 193 under votes in the mayor's race and 128 in the AISD bond election.

Those voters who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a commissioner had to have made a special trip to the polls to vote against Harpole. At least that's my assumption as I can't go ask them their motivation.

It's not a large number in comparison to Harpole's 5,663 votes, but there were likely almost 1,300 people who felt the need to voice their dislike of the current administration enough to get out of the house just to vote against Harpole.